When we are driving a car and a small light goes on, on the vehicle’s screen, we are not indifferent to it.

Instead, if our car also has the appropriate sound, listening to the sound and seeing the light on, we all experience a first shock until we stop and check the vehicle.

I do not have in mind any reasonable person who would listen to the perplexing sound of the harm and danger signal, would see the light blinking and be indifferent to it! Even if the screen has ten or twenty or thirty lights and only one shows a problem, while the other 29 are ok. Instead, we are all rushing to know what might have happened and to take action if we have planned a very long journey.

This very direct reaction is characteristic of human life, which wants to move on to tomorrow without any, known at least, danger. And this also applies to a healthy living faith. When the person of faith hears the characteristic sound and finds that something is not going well in their everyday life, they owe to immediately seek a diagnosis for the problem and to repair the damage, especially if they have a distant and endless journey without return ahead of them.

The word “focus” is a daily word with which we declare our special interest in something specific. The fireplace, the place where the ancients could light up a fire inside the house, was naturally the center of everyday life, because the family gathered around it and lived the special moments in the house.

The importance of this ancient practice is confirmed today with the habit of the great world leaders to meet their counterparts in front of a lit fireplace. “Focus”, therefore, means concentrating on something very meaningful and very different from everything else around me. And that’s exactly what Christ wants us to do daily in our life. Focus our attention, not on countless things and lose ourselves in chaos, but focus on something essential and after we exhaust it, move on to the next thing.

And Christ gave the best thing to focus on daily: his teaching, which no one can take away from us when we choose it as the primary and the first issue in our daily reality.

A student is someone who regularly attends school and listens to a teacher. A good student is someone who listens carefully to the teacher and understands what the teacher says. But the best one is the one who listens carefully, understands what the teacher says and also puts into practice what the teacher says and ultimately wants to become a teacher.

A student is not the one who passes by school and stays only until the first bell rings. A student is not the one who asks the regular students in order to learn what the teacher said in the classroom. A student is not the one who says they know everything, but in fact they have never sat down to listen systematically to the Master.

And a very good question is why, when it is explicitly stated that the Disciples of Christ were called Christians, we insist on calling Christians those who have never had any serious relationship with the teaching of Christ.

Fatalism is called our attitude towards events that harm us without us reacting to them; when we accept situations which are harmful to our personal life, without reacting properly. But even with the measures of our everyday life, this is not healthy and does not meet our real needs.

That’s because the fatalistic attitude prejudges our destruction. If one does not believe they have a chance to win and does not go to the battle, they have already lost and the winner is their opponent. On the contrary, by exhausting all our efforts, we are likely to win the battle.

Abandoning our efforts to win is the best chance for the enemy to become a winner and take our freedom and possessions, making us and our family, their slaves. This is also the message of Christ to every man of living faith. Never surrender. Never get disappointed.

The parable of the widow and the unjust judge, who gave in not because the widow was right but because of her persistence, is the best proof that the living God asks the believers to fight for the win and not out of obligation!